Has it all been said?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Surely there can't be more than one book that inspired Tolkien? Nobody reads that much.

Actually, quite a few of the elements of Tolkien's fiction are present in Morris, but the earlier writer tends to base his fantasy more firmly on actual history and legend. Whereas Tolkien would adopt a story, add elements of another and then give the whole a personal twist, Morris would re-tell one story in his own style. Both were drawing inspiration from the medieval world, but they did so in different ways. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Tolkien had read and enjoyed medieval historical fiction (perhaps we'll see Conan Doyle's The White Company and Sir Nigel released with a similar puff soon), but all this publisher's blurb is just that: marketing spiel with no real meaning. William Morris at least deserves better of posterity than to sit in Tolkien's shadow.